In the Nov. 28 open meeting of the Committee on Academic Priorities (CAP), President Marx outlined a number of the CAP's goals for the College's future. At the heart of many of these goals was a principle Marx laid out in his inaugural address over two years ago: "Our responsibility remains to select the best of diverse students, so that they may come here and learn from each other." Although the College currently does an outstanding job of culling students from every background one could imagine, there is a notable hole in the current admission policy.

For years, Amherst has been "need blind" for accepted students from the United States and Canada. We applaud the Office of Financial Aid for its generosity and hard work in assuring that any American or Canadian student who is accepted by the College can afford to attend. The administration works hard to get this information to high school students who would otherwise be scared off by our $40,000 plus price tag. But if the College is going to truly "select the best of diverse students," it must extend our need-blind policy to international applicants as well. The Financial Aid Web site boasts that the College "is committed to making financial aid available to all students with financial need so that cost does not become the determining factor in making a decision about Amherst." If we want fulfill this commitment we cannot continue to discriminate on the basis of a student's nationality.

Not only is going completely need blind necessary to fulfill our self-described responsibility, it is necessary for us to maintain our credibility as one of the elite American institutions of higher learning. Currently, five colleges and universities nationwide uses an entirely need-blind admission policy: Harvard, Princeton and Yale Universities and Williams and Middlebury Colleges. All five schools sport international student populations comparable to Amherst's six percent; however due to our need based admissions policy, we are not drawing these international students from diverse backgrounds. At the other five schools, these students represent a wide range of experiences from abroad, while those at Amherst constitute a more narrow socioeconomic population. How can we claim to be "the premier liberal arts college in the nation" when by our own metric we cannot measure up to our closest competitors in terms of diversity?

We understand that taking this step is not an inexpensive one: Williams, which only recently made the move to a completely need blind policy, reportedly required $10 million from their endowment to do so. Foreign-born students are not eligible for much of the federal aid awarded to American students. Still, if we wish to draw the best, most diverse students to our College on the Hill, we cannot ignore students with financial needs, wherever they may be. As the CAP grapples with many difficult decisions regarding the College's path in the next 10-15 years, it must rectify this hypocritical lapse in the College's admission policies.